Dear Teacher,
The informational text genre feeds students’ interests and curiosity while informing them about the natural world and specific topics. Students enjoy poring over and learning from these informational text features: photographs and captions, sidebars chock-full of intriguing details, diagrams, charts, excerpts from journals and interviews, and firsthand accounts by eyewitnesses. Authors of informational books breathe energy and excitement into the text when they include true stories about people and animals that survived shipwrecks, earthquakes, tornadoes, and fires. Stories forge powerful connections between readers and the information and motivate students to read on and learn more. When students read informational texts to learn, it’s helpful to build their background knowledge so they can access the text. Tap into their enjoyment of all things visual and show video clips or share photographs from the internet. You can even take students on virtual tours of museums around the world if they’re reading about ancient Greece, Rome, or Egypt, or about great thinkers like Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo da Vinci!
Laura Robb
- To download a copy of the complete guide, click here: Informational Text: A Let’s Work Together Teaching Guide
- To view a list of Informational Text titles, click here: Informational Text Title List
